So by God’s providence Paul reached Rome safe and sound. But he arrived as a prisoner! Christ’s promise that be would testify in Rome had not included that information.

With the time reference, Luke provides the last biographical note on Paul. He fails to disclose Paul’s release, subsequent travels, second imprisonment, and death.

With the time reference, Luke provides the last biographical note on Paul. He fails to disclose Paul’s release, subsequent travels, second imprisonment, and death.

Probably he resumed his tent-making, in order to pay his way. But when visitors came to see him, he laid aside his manual labour for evangelism.

Information as to what happened beyond that time comes from extrabiblical sources and from hints in the last few of Paul’s letters. First Clement 5.7 (written A.D. 95, perhaps the earliest known orthodox Christian writing after the NT) speaks of Paul preaching in “the limits of the west,” which probably indicates his fulfilling his desire to preach in Spain (see Rom. 15:24).

The church historian Eusebius, writing in A.D. 325, cites the tradition that Paul was freed from confinement and carried on a further ministry until he was arrested and placed in a second Roman imprisonment, at which time he was martyred (Ecclesiastical History 2.22).

“welcoming” Luke uses this term often with the connotation of “heartily welcome” (cf. 18:27; 28:30 and paradechōmai in 15:4). It is used of the crowd welcoming Jesus in Luke 8:40 and 9:11. It is used of welcoming the gospel as preached by Peter in Acts 2:41.

Probably he resumed his tent-making, in order to pay his way. But when visitors came to see him, he laid aside his manual labour for evangelism.

In God’s sovereignty, Paul’s time in prison was not wasted, for it was during his Roman imprisonment that he wrote the letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. The time after Paul’s release from his first imprisonment (mid-60s) would be when he wrote 1 Timothy and Titus. He probably wrote his last letter, 2 Timothy, during his second imprisonment, as he awaited execution (cf. 2 Tim. 4:6–8).

A weight is attached to a rope, not to break, but to prove it. Pressure is applied to a boiler, not to burst it, but to certify its power of resistance. The testing process here confers no strength. But when a sailor has to navigate his ship under a heavy gale and in a difficult channel; or when a general has to fight against a superior force and on disadvantageous ground, skill and courage are not only tested, but improved. The test has brought experience, and by practice is every faculty perfected. So, faith grows stronger by exercise, and patience by the enduring of sorrow.

The Koh-I-Noor diamond, when it came into the Queen of England’s possession, was a misshapen lump. It was necessary to have its corners cut off and its sides reduced to symmetry. No unskillful hand was permitted to touch it. Men of science were summoned to consider its nature and capacities. They examined the form of its crystals and the consistency of its parts. They considered the direction of the grain and the side on which it would bear pressure. With their instructions, the jewel was placed in the hands of an experienced lapidary, and by long, patient, careful labor its sides were ground down to the desired proportions. The gem was hard and needed a heavy pressure. It was precious and needed every precaution that science and skill could suggest to get it cut and polished into shape without cracking it in the process. The effort was successful. The hard diamond was fashioned into forms of beauty and yet sustained no damage by the greatness of the pressure to which it was subjected. “Jewels, bright jewels,” in the form of spiritual children were the heritage God gave to Paul, as a spiritual father. God may permit us to play the same role as spiritual parents to our children, or to the children of God in the Church. Let us recognize in either case that children are unshapely and need to be polished; they are hard and cannot be reduced to symmetry without firm handling; they are brittle, and so liable to be permanently damaged by the wrong kind of pressure; but they are stones of peculiar preciousness and, if they are successfully polished, they will shine as stars for ever and ever, giving off the glory they reflect from the Son of Righteousness.

κηρύσσω kērússō; fut. kērúxō. To preach, to herald, proclaim.

(I) Generally, to proclaim, announce publicly (Matt. 10:27; Luke 12:3; Acts 10:42; Rev. 5:2; Sept.: Ex. 32:5; Esth. 6:9, 11; Joel 2:1). In the sense of to publish abroad, announce publicly (Mark 1:45; 5:20; 7:36; Luke 8:39).

(II) Especially to preach, publish, or announce religious truth, the gospel with its attendant privileges and obligations, the gospel dispensation.

PREACHING. To preach is to proclaim, to announce, to declare a word from God, to present publicly the good news, to deliver a religious discourse related directly or indirectly to a text of Scripture.

Terms Which by Definition Refer to Preaching. These are primarily kērussō, meaning, first of all, “to announce or to proclaim publicly,” a word used approximately sixty times (Mark 1:14; 1 Cor 1:23; Acts 10:42), and euangelizō, meaning “to announce good news” (Acts 5:42).

Paul saw himself as Christ’s herald. When he describes himself as an appointed preacher of the gospel (2 Tim. 1:11), the noun he uses means a herald, a person who makes public announcements on another’s behalf. When he declares “we preach Christ crucified,” the verb he uses denotes the herald’s appointed activity of blazoning abroad what he has been told to make known.

The body of sermons recorded in Acts (Peter, Stephen, Paul) is called the Kerygma (proclamation, cf. 20:25; 28:31; Rom. 10:8; Gal. 2:2; 1 Cor. 9:27; 2 Tim. 4:2)

announced the kingdom not just as a reality which was at hand, something which would appear in the immediate future, but as a reality which was already present, manifested in his own person and ministry.

The kingdom of heaven breaks into the domain of the evil one. The power of Satan is broken. Jesus sees him fall like lightning from heaven. He possesses and bestows power to trample on the dominion of the enemy. Nothing can be impossible for those who go forth into the world, invested with Jesus’ power, as witnesses of the kingdom (Lk. 10:18f.).

The kingdom is the whole of God’s redeeming activity in Christ in this world; the church is the assembly of those who belong to Jesus Christ. Perhaps one could speak in terms of two concentric circles, of which the church is the smaller and the kingdom the larger, while Christ is the centre of both.

the kingdom is not confined within the frontiers of the church. Christ’s Kingship is supreme above all. Where it prevails and is acknowledged, not only is the individual human being set free, but the whole pattern of life is changed: the curse of the demons and fear of hostile powers disappears.

Our king is Jesus. Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Jesus’ authority did not come from man but from God (Luke 22:29).

Entrance into the kingdom of God is by a new birth (John 3:5), repentance (Matt. 3:2), and the divine call (1 Thess. 2:12). We are told to seek the kingdom of God first (Matt. 6:33) and to pray for its arrival (Matt. 6:10). “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). It is also a future kingdom where full rulership in the actual presence of the king Jesus will occur when He returns to earth.

David Brainerd writing in his journal on August 23, 1743: “My soul was concerned, not so much for souls as such, but rather for Christ’s kingdom, that it might appear in the world, that God might be known to be God in the whole earth.”

Jesus is presented as the oral teacher par excellence (John 3:2; 13:13), and he is often addressed as “Teacher” (e.g., Mark 10:17; Luke 12:13)

the teaching of Jesus interpreted in the Epistles is called the Didache (teaching, cf. 2:42; 5:28; 13:12; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 14:20).

That Gospel ends with Jesus commissioning his followers to make disciples of all nations by teaching people to obey his commands (28:19–20). The book of Acts presents devotion to the apostles’ teaching as one of the ideal marks of the early church (2:42).

the teaching of Jesus interpreted in the Epistles is called the Didache (teaching, cf. 2:42; 5:28; 13:12; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 14:20).

DIDACHE

The Greek word for doctrine, or teaching. The word appears thirty times in the NT. The AV translates it doctrine in all but one place (Tit. 1:9 where the Greek, “according to the doctrine” is translated, “as he hath been taught”).

DIDACHE. An early work on Christian discipline, known also as the Teaching of the (Lord through the Twelve) Apostles (to the Nations). The only independent Gk manuscript (dated to 1056 C.E.) of this relatively compact handbook of Christian ethical (chaps. 1–6) and liturgical-community (chaps. 7–15) instructions, concluded by a brief eschatological admonition (chap. 16), was “discovered” (recovered) by P. Bryennios in 1873 and quickly brought to the attention of modern western scholarship.

DIDACHE [DID uh kay] (teaching) — a writing of the early church probably used as a manual of instruction to train converts to Christianity in doctrine and discipline before they were baptized. The date of its writing is uncertain, but it was probably put into its final form between A.D. 50 and 225.

The Didache contained several important sections, including a discussion of the Two Ways—the ways of life and death; directions for worship; instructions concerning church officers and the conduct of congregational affairs; and a section on ESCHATOLOGY, or the end time. The Didache is important because it gives insights into church life during this early period of Christian history.

Didache (Διδαχὴ Κυρίου διὰ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων), a short early Christian manual on morals and Church practice. Of its 16 brief chapters, chs. 1–6 describe the ‘Two Ways’, the ‘Way of Life’ and the ‘Way of Death’; they include quotations from the *Sermon on the Mount. Chs. 7–15 contain instructions on *Baptism, *fasting, *prayer, the *Eucharist, and how to treat *apostles and *prophets, *bishops, and *deacons. Ch. 16 is a prophecy of the *Antichrist and the *Second Coming.

True religion begins, then, with the heart, and the heart is the ruling power of manhood. You may enlighten a man’s understanding, and you have done much, but as long as his heart is wrong, the enlightenment of the understanding only enables him to sin with a greater weight of responsibility resting on him. He knows good to be good, but he prefers the evil.

I want to tell him that Christ is sufficient. My heart is broken, my heart is crushed, my heart is bleeding, but there is a song in my heart, and Christ put it there.

Boldness denotes two things in the NT. First, boldness describes the courageous manner of those who preach the gospel (Acts 2:29; 4:13, 31; 9:27–29; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 26:26; 28:31; 1 Thess. 2:2; Phil. 1:20). The word translated as “boldness” in these texts (parresia) was used of the free citizen of a city-state who could say anything in the public assembly. In the NT it denotes the moral freedom to speak the truth publicly. Second, boldness describes the confidence with which Christians can now approach God because of the redeeming work of Christ (2 Cor. 3:4–6, 12; Heb. 10:19; 1 John 2:28; 4:17).

To preach the gospel boldly is to deliver it as such a message ought to be delivered [C. H. Spurgeon, Feathers for Arrows, p. 23].

the elegant adverb ακωλυτως, the very last word of the book. This in all likelihood refers to the fact that there were no external restraints or hindrances placed on Paul in regard to his proclamation

The lack of external constraints, then, has probably rightly been seen as a comment on how the Roman authorities viewed Paul’s case. Paul is being treated with the respect a Roman citizen under house arrest and not thought to be guilty of any serious crime would expect to be treated.

‘Without hindrance’ means that, although the military surveillance continued, there was no ban by the authorities on Paul’s speaking. Though his hand was still bound, his mouth was open for Jesus Christ. Though he was chained, the Word of God was not. Together Luke’s two adverbs describe the freedom which the gospel enjoyed, having neither internal nor external restraint.

And so the Book of Acts comes to an end with a shout of triumph. In the Greek, without let or hindrance is one word—and that one word rises like a victor’s cry. It is the climax of Luke’s story. We wonder why Luke never told us what happened to Paul, whether he was executed or released. The reason is that this was not Luke’s purpose.

Now the tale is finished; the story that began in Jerusalem rather more than thirty years earlier has finished in Rome. It is nothing less than a miracle of God. The Church, which at the beginning of Acts could be numbered in tens, cannot now be numbered in tens of thousands. The story of the crucified man of Nazareth has swept across the world in its conquering course until now without interference it is being preached in Rome, the capital of the world. The gospel has reached the centre of the world and is being freely proclaimed—and Luke’s task is at an end.

All the emphasis lies on that last phrase. The implication is that the charges against Paul were false and that God backed up his proclamation. Nothing that men can do can stop the progress and ultimate victory of the gospel.